Thursday Night – Tennessee Titans at Pittsburgh Steelers

Week 11 kicks off with a nice Thursday Night Football matchup between the Titans and Steelers. Both teams have a good chance of winning their respective divisions this year should be in prime form as we enter the latter half of the NFL season. I like this one to be a high scoring contest as both teams have talented signal callers neither plays terrific defense. That’s a recipe for a little bit of a shootout to kick off the week.

Keys to the Game

Titans

Tennessee is going to want to slow the pace of this game if they want to give themselves a shot at toppling the Steelers. They don’t have the firepower of a Le’Veon Bell or Antonio Brown to keep pace if this game turns into a track meet, so the running game will be their best friend. A solid dose of DeMarco Murray and the bruising Derrick Henry should do well to even the playing field for the Titans. Keeping Bell and Brown off the field is the best defense the Titans can play in this one.

Steelers

The key for Pittsburgh will be throwing the football. Throw it early, throw it late, throw it short, throw it deep, just throw the ball. Tennessee has a pretty soft secondary and Pittsburgh has one of the best receiving corps in the league. Advantage: Steelers. This should allow Pitt to get out to an early lead and put the pressure on young Marcus Mariota right away. That’s exactly where the Steelers want Mariota: forced to drop back and throw the football. As good as he is, Mariota hasn’t established himself as one of the best pure passers in the league just yet and that veteran Steeler defense should have no issue shutting him down when he’s 1-dimensional.